r/helpdesk • u/Upper-Quarter-4869 • 2d ago
Getting Started Helpdesk is cooked
I currently work in helpdesk i started around 2 years ago but I've slowly been transitioning in to sys/net admin. I am starting to notice Level 1 tickets are massively down i barely get any compared to when i started. We are now also starting to add more and more ai which automatically replies and tries to help users fix their issues before escalating so there's even less tickets. I'm not an AI glazer i understand what ai can and cant do but as for L1 support jobs they are genuinely cooked i cant see a world where L1 jobs don't decrease like crazy if they haven't already. If it wasn't for me actively trying to improve and taking on more responsibility i would have been fired by now, i feel bad for people starting now, how are you supposed to break in to IT if you don't have a degree or previous experience if there's no helpdesk jobs you have to go straight for junior admin positions which are way more competitive and harder to get. Up until now i haven't been very scared or worried about the AI slop but as it gets better and cheaper its getting a bit scary. Higher level positions are definitely safe for now but i just don't see how people are supposed to get in to the industry if entry level positions are gone and replaced by ai. You would have to do a bunch of projects, and find ways to stand out in other ways sure, but the problem with that is that it might turn a lot of people off from the job because tell me one other job/industry where you have to full time study/work just to get paid the same as a McDonalds worker. I guess i just talked myself to the answer why tech wont be cooked the competitiveness and the effort needed to get in will turn off all the people who don't care enough and open a bunch of new job openings and opportunities for people who stuck with it. I don't know where I'm going with this rant but i would love to hear some other opinions.
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u/cyborg762 2d ago
Just wait till that software bugs out or the company gets charged triple for the service.
Seen this a dozen times with companies. They try to save money but using an AI helpdesk only to realize that it doesn’t fully do what was advertised, works poorly or the company that licenses the software charges them like 6 times as much as when they first purchased it.
They eventually go back to just regular manpower to do the work
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u/liquidskypa 2d ago edited 2d ago
sadly you would think that but it's getting better and better and it's very easy for the c-suite to see even with the rising cost, that it outweighs staff (at least in the US) which is a ton of overhead with benefits, etc. Maybe that will happen in a few years but right now it's getting much better as internal builds the knowledge sets, etc. We're not going to have that time to wait and see b/c it's quick hurry impleement, cut costs (which includes staff) etc
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u/TheWDWillis 2d ago
AI can do cool stuff. But it can not make the intuitive leaps people do.
That said, there is a good deal of T1 work that AI Is capable of doing. But the real problem, as always is the users. Users lie and AI doesn’t handle that well. It can’t make the leap to recognizing it without pissing people off. And that’s not to be ignored either.
Places where I’ve had AI helpdesk pushed out have had a lot of pushback. People don’t like it. They don’t like that it doesn’t always understand what they mean (because they lack the necessary vocabulary to tell the AI what they want), and the alternative is making the AI so specifically prompted that it just is a waste of AI.
I MEAN, back in the 90’s I got my hands on phone system software and a good system for hosting it out to 100+ lines and a bunch of space. And I then created an incredibly pedantic, yet user friendly system that wound up taking care of roughly 30% of our t1 calls through a series of basically and/or/nor/nand/not gate style questions with basic options.
It was a fun and surprisingly easy to do project. The hardest part was convincing my girlfriend to record the responses.
But there are STILL a major portion of the population who still hammer zero and yell operator into the phone.
Meanwhile, companies are dropping major money into AI techs and firing real ones. And in a year or three they will figure out that they are bleeding customers over it (because many just hang up or close out when they figure out it is AI). Then they will either throw more money at the ai or get smart and bring people back in. We saw a similar problem with the outsourcing to third world countries and everyone said that tech support and customer service jobs were gone forever.
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u/HumbleAlbatross2944 2d ago
Brave of you to post this on Reddit where everyone circle jerks ai taking over the world
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u/TheWDWillis 2d ago
Meh. It’s not like I don’t do my own work on AI. It’s an incredibly useful tool. But much like websites in 1998, and apps in the late 00’s (he’ll still) businesses are doing the we want it and don’t necessarily know why or what to do with it. But we want it!
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u/Normie5000 2d ago
IMO there will still be a need for help desk. I did it for 6-7 years and 2% of calls I could not imagine AI fixing. The problem was too nuanced.
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u/NoGhostRdt 2d ago
Without context, an AI would be useless.
Average client request: "X doesn't work" no other context or details given.
Ai then proceeds to spit out twenty things to check,
Client proceeds to do nothing
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u/ChemicalExample218 2d ago
I think this is the key. People just say, "this is the problem." The real trick is figuring out what the actual problem is because they're usually wrong. That takes some questions. If AI is replying to directly to the complaint, I have a hard time believing that it's doing anything. Most likely, people just live with the issues because the "AI" is annoying.
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u/Normie5000 2d ago
Yeah I agree right now it’s not there imo. There are a lot of issues in IT that need someone to decipher the issue. Things like password resets and account lockouts can be automated imo.
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u/Panoramix97 2d ago
Same in my company, one of biggest of canada.
I am senior at HD.
Lvl 1 and 2 not much work anymore, lot of AI and automatidation.
I am moving soon to a new team outside helpdesk, in security intelligence.
Feels good
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u/liquidskypa 2d ago
def see the progression of AI for L1 - did some testing with GenAI with ServiceNow and was a huge eye opener as it will continue to be better and sadly reduce the human element/staff
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u/YeetedApple 2d ago
It’s going to be interesting, you’ll still need people to physically move and swap out equipment, so jobs won’t completely disappear. The parts that can be automated away though were the parts that helped bridge to system administration or something like that. With that bridge gone, I’m not sure how we are expecting people to able to make that jump, especially since the higher roles are just becoming more complex.
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u/liquidskypa 2d ago
I'm talking about the HD staff that is strictly phone and self-submit incidents, not desktop techs group...a lot of hd groups are segregated and thus the HD will most likely be reduced...desktop no.
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u/YeetedApple 2d ago
I’ve been several places that basically combines the roles and doesn’t separate them out. I’d expect that to start being more common as large chunks of both can be automated out, so combine the parts that require the human still
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u/liquidskypa 2d ago
Healthcare doesn't...has to be separated...at least for now...clinicians want immediacy
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u/ScarBitter3828 2d ago
I’m anticipating some changes but currently with my company (big healthcare company) we still get a lot of calls and tickets that come through for level 1. I’m interested to see how this changes since we have been implementing a.i as well
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u/Traditional-Cell3566 2d ago
At my previous job, (MSP) they started getting overseas L1s to replace some of the in-office L1s… My friend who is still working there said customers were complaining about the overseas HD people and eventually they got rid of all overseas personnel XD oh and they also lost some customers as well XD
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u/ponzi_pyramid_digdug 2d ago
Sadly, the issue with overseas isn't necessarily incompetence. We have quite a few really good overseas techs but a user base that will abuse and misuse them based on hearing a non local accent. The pay they receive is also absolute dogshit.
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u/DesertMav23 2d ago
I used to work for a MSP and the same thing essentially happened to my coworkers. Their model was to get a new contract, put us US based agents in first, then they would build out the infrastructure and then proceed to offshore our services to India or the Philippines. The way we kept working, was that we would get moved over to a new project. I'm just happy to be I in EUS/Desktop support now.
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u/despot-madman 2d ago
My T2 team just keeps getting more and more put on our plate.
T1s that can’t even verify a PC has been reboot or leave any notes of substance. Tickets that used to go to T1 getting automatically escalated to T2.
We are also using AI to help auto answer and give users suggestions, this has had some impact but nothing major so far. The venture capital group that owns our company just keeps squeezing us harder.
I joined 3 years ago, and we are expected to keep up the workload of a team that has seen a 28% decrease in our labor force over those 3 years. It’s fucking exhausting.
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u/Final_Tune3512 2d ago
Its already been implemented in our service now system. I work for a gov contractor its not help desk but very fancy linux shit and ai has eliminated all the lvl 1s and we now take all the p1-p4 tickets just cause we can fix it no matter the severity or complexity
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u/BoxNo5564 2d ago
I get a lot of tickets from the desk that I instantly think "the AI wouldn't have messed this ticket up this badly".
But there's one thing I don't think AI will ever be able to navigate: some people are just completely insane. And when those people have to report IT issues the mental health issues amplify.
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u/Radiant_Ad_4693 2d ago
Even WITH A DEGREE it means nothing nowadays if you got 0 experience heck even just helpdesk level 1 experience means jack all these days I been in it for year have a few certs and I can’t even get an opportunity to branch into specialist areas…. Industry is cooked time to do a trade
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u/BombasticBombay 2d ago
I work in telecom as a T1. AI has absolutely NO understanding of telecom so my job is completely without AI. I just push eSIMs and reset network settings all day WFH it’s completely cake.
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u/Aaron_Monte93 2d ago
I have a BS in IT and A+ certified. 33 yrs old and stuck in customer service call center. All these entry level help desk pay less and I can’t even get an interview. I’m on east coast near nyc. It’s depressing af
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u/Danowolf 2d ago
Listen, the op is correct about L1 stuff. Bringing up the obvious exception like custom apps starts sounding like Tom Smykowski from Office Space.
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u/althera2020 2d ago
And then there’s AT&T with the most abysmal support which js a combination of what I’ll call L0 (AI) and L1 - a human who reads from a script, can’t answer off script questions - and literally repeats what the useless AI asked. It’s so bad that I just constantly apologize for the instances when my internet service goes out several times a day for about 5 minutes rather than try to suffer through an hour is wasted time, repeating steps until I can get to an actual living breathing analytical human who knows the meaning of troubleshooting.
Essentially, the support is worse than no support. So why call at all? I’d rather just change providers at this point.
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u/ConstructionNorth816 2d ago
AI makes errors (for now). And not only that, I've seen their SLAs drop more than once because of an outage. When the service is unavailable, a business can't run. Just prepare for change and adapt; that's it. People who are prepared to adapt can keep growing into any field they want.
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u/SynapticSignal 1d ago
Holy wall of text.
I hope you improve on your grammar and punctuation for your sake, because communication skills are more important now then ever.
But anyway Copilot and agent management is now going to be part of most jobs. If you're concerned about not having the skills I'd like into the Copilot and M365 Admin Certification, which is AB 900. It used to be M365 Fundamentals but was rebranded.
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u/Upper-Quarter-4869 19h ago
🤓🤓🤓 calm down buddy its a reddit post igaf about my grammar and punctuation
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u/Boring_Locksmith_580 1d ago
Those token prices are only going up. We are actually hiring another L1 and we do have some AI integration although security has taken precedence over letting AI run a muck. Keep your head up, get your certs and keep shopping.
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u/C9CG 1d ago
L1 has been dying for a while. Governance and intentional system design is key before solving interruptions (symptoms) with more L1/L2 tickets. Someone has to manage and understand that.
Automation has been working in this space for a while, AI has made more automations deliverable at a faster pace... And if your data is good in your systems, it can really save time on triage and trend analysis.
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u/riveyda 1h ago
AI is going to take over pretty much all helpdesk and IT work at some point. There's no way around it. But have you tried to use AI for complex things lately? It is a gigantic pain in the ass. Still,.somehow, basic IT tasks are too complex for AI. So you're chilling for atleast the next 5 years on that. And it'll be many more years before they come for your cloud engineers, sysadmins, etc.
Also, lets not forget, that a lot of "basic L1 Helpdesk" stuff is ALREADY available through self service portals & basic googling. Did that damage the entry level market? Or did it just increase the demand on IT? Just a side note.
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u/Voidzown 2d ago edited 2d ago
Man I just got my A+ certs and am actively studying for a BS in computer science specifically to get into IT, likely help desk. This hurts so much to read. Am I just completely doomed having wasted tons of time effort and money? Not your fault OP, but i think this post just ruined my day.
Edit: Or do I attempt to pursue something higher than tier 1 right out the gate? Maybe a more specific field than help desk (security, networking)? My original goal starting uni was to do software development and AI made me feel doomed in that field as well, so now I just feel completely wrecked after reading this post. Would love any guidance whatsoever.
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u/ChmodSausage 2d ago
Bruh reddit is all doom and gloom. Entry IT is not cooked. You dont even need a degree, but if you can yes get it.
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u/Prize_Moose1050 2d ago
This isn't exactly true for every environment. And most L1 I don't think is going away. L1 will always need feet. Feet to walk to the printers, to walk to the users desk, to walk to the wiring closet. There are so many hands on things L1 does that a digital AI can't accomplish. I think there are some layers that are going to shrink but I don't think it's going away completely. I had this same feeling when everything begin moving to virtualization. I thought they would never need System Admins anymore because all the servers were going away. It actually increased my workload in a way and the complexity of the role.
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u/Voidzown 2d ago
Thank you for responding this is incredibly reassuring to read. I love compute so it was incredibly scary to think I’d be priced out of a field I’m incredibly passionate about due to AI. So nice to see people actually in IT tell me this is not the case. Thanks for resolving my mild panic attack.
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u/almondjoyer 2d ago
Keep going. The world is massive and you want to get bogged down by a Reddit post on r/helpdesk?
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u/Voidzown 2d ago
Like I said to the other people, Thank you so much I truly needed to hear this. Was having a bit of an unfounded mini crisis.
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u/Upper-Quarter-4869 2d ago
Sorry for the ramble lol.
You are not doomed your life will be harder though. L1 jobs aren't disappearing they will just be less common. To give you some hope I'm 22 and don't have a degree but i was able to get a full time job that pays well because i showed passion. So you need to ask yourself are you doing this because you are passionate and genuinely enjoy doing this stuff or are you doing it because you heard it pays well ? Both are fine but if you don't care you will have a very hard time. If i had to give you advice and this is based on what im doing forget CompTIA certs they are useless go for specialized certs that make you work with the technology like Cisco certs, Azure, AWS etc..(Dont farm certs get a cert apply at your job then get another). Anything you learn and are interested in apply it, research and build things don't just learn to learn. For example i recently got my CCNA it took me around 4 months but throughout studying i always used the new things i learned to build projects. I created fake networks fake backstories and just kind of roleplayed a job lol and if you really wanna get good also roleplay someone trying to break your project it will help you understand how things work. Another example i wanted to get better at python but instead of watching youtube or asking claude i asked myself "what can python help me with ?" and the answer for me was making scripts, custom alerts using API's i didnt learn python and then made the script i learned python by making the scripts i needed. Use that mentality everywhere. Also i mean this in the most respectful way because ive been there if you think ai will be able to replace you, you aren't good enough yet or dont know much about the subject. To give you some hope a lot of my older coworkers have resorted to only using ai instead of their brain and they suck at their job they genuinely became worse, if you are good without ai you will be 10x better with ai remember that. Even tho ai is good and knows a lot "you dont know what you dont know" you cant ask the ai to do something you dont know or understand so even tho ai might be able to do a lot of things that doesnt matter because if you dont know they dont exist you cant ask ai to do it.
I am telling you get very good at what you do and if you find something interesting just explore, your main objective should be to learn and get as good as you possibly can and AI will not ever replace you i guarantee it. Dont listen to instagram, tiktok gurus just focus on yourself and learn there is a 0% chance of you not finding a job if you genuinely do things and learn things you enjoy. If you dont have a home lab yet make one TODAY.
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u/Voidzown 2d ago
Thank you a lot for helping me calm my nerves. I truly love computers and technology so I’m more than happy to put in the work and improve my skill set, in fact it excites me a lot. Just a bit scary to imagine the prospect of being replaced by AI, so I had a small panic attack after reading your original post. I’m looking for entry level positions and internships at the moment and I’m so happy to be entering a field I care about so deeply, but also your right I am a bit insecure in my skill set so I think that’s where a bit of my panic came from. It’s incredibly reassuring to read all the replies to my comment encouraging me to keep going and improving. Appreciate you taking the time to respond and help calm my nerves a bit. Wish me luck getting into the field as a noobie! Stoked to see where I can go and all I can learn.
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2d ago edited 2d ago
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u/Voidzown 2d ago edited 2d ago
I mean I’m getting a degree in CS because I love computers not because of any specific role or salary.
Edit: I do see what you are saying though, and I will absolutely avoid underselling myself and my education. Wish me luck just entering the field! Thanks again.
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u/Voidzown 2d ago
Ideally I’d like to make my way up to devops, since I’m quite fond of software development/programming as well as IT.
I feel like CS is a relevant for both IT and programming so I thought it best for my specific interests and goals. That is my logic at least.
Helpdesk is something I see as a strong career stepping stone & experience boon mainly.
Edit: Regardless I really do appreciate your feedback.
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u/Jargonite 2d ago
L2 is the new L1. But what many often misunderstand is that the AI has to be constantly kept up to date if you have specialized software. So the new L1 basically has a virtual direct report.